Normal Creatures
by threedays
Summary: The first thing Sam learns in college is that nobody, anywhere, will ever understand him.


**Normal Creatures**

Nobody back home will ever understand him.

Sam knows this is true, and it's the only thing stopping him from running out of this neat little dorm room so different from his old life, down the stairs and out the door and to the nearest payphone to call his brother.

He longs to be understood, and nobody back home will ever understand him. Not Dean, who didn't exactly _beg_ him not to go away to college – who said _Fine, Sammy, go – do what you need to do - _but whose pained eyes and sad smile accused Sam of letting him down. And not Dad – _surely_ not Dad – who was so pissed and so hurt that, in a fight that rattled the motel windows, he told Sam not to come back.

They can't understand his desire – his _need_ – to be like other people. Like _normal_ people. Like …

Seth Bannister?

His dorm roommate, Seth, an impatient sort of fellow with glasses and a high school band sweatshirt, has been lugging in belongings for the better part of an hour, assisted by his parents in their polos and khakis. Sam knows he asked for normal – knew before he came here that, in college, he would encounter people like the ones he and Dean and Dad have only ever met by saving from the night – but it's strange being so _close_ to normal people. He feels, absurdly, like he's on a hunting trip, doing recon on some rare species of monster. Taking notes on Normal Creatures so he can use their weaknesses against them.

Okay, he _really_ needs to shake his hunting instincts now.

"Are you already all moved in, Samuel?" This is Seth's mother, so cheerful Sam has to step back half an inch just to tolerate her.

"Yes, ma'am," he lies. "And, um, it's Sam." Wishing the dorm monitor hadn't felt the need to put everyone's names on their doors in colorful marker on construction paper footballs. He came to college seeking normal and he found … paper footballs. He has a sinking suspicion college isn't as normal as he'd hoped.

Seth is busy trying to cram all his belongings into his half of the closet. He's got his back up against a towering pile of detergent-clean, store-new fabric. Sam nods at the empty half of the closet, happy to give up his side if it means Seth will stop making the pained grunting noises that make Sam think of a vampire feeding.

"I don't have much stuff, man," he says. "You can put some stuff over here."

"Hey, thanks, dude." Seth stops shoving and a cascade of messily-folded khakis and boxer shorts and towels go spilling into Sam's vacant half of the closet.

"Oh, this is going to be so much fun for you guys," Seth's mother trills. "It'll be like you finally have a brother, Seth!"

Sam's temper flares and he clenches his jaw and fist. He thinks of the smell of leather and the gravelly sound of cursing and the permanence of familiar breathing a motel bed away. He starts singing a Metallica song, one of his least favorites, under his breath.

"This room isn't very big," Seth says doubtfully. He is standing on a chair, trying to find wall space for his Blink 182 posters. Again, Sam gestures at his own half of the wall space. Seth beams.

Oblivious, Seth's mother claps her hands together. "Oh, it's not _too_ small," she scolds. "It'll be fun, boys! Like you're camping out."

Sam swallows a scoff. He observes the neat, leak-free ceiling tiles, the rain-proof windows, the cinderblock walls. He wiggles his toes, dry in his socks. He thinks of werewolves and wendigos, leaky tents and the dying embers of campfires. He thinks of being so cold you can't remember what it's like to be warm. Here in the cozy dorm room, he shivers once, then stops.

Seth's mother is still going, tipping Sam's internal rating of the woman from _perky_ to _psychotic_. "It'll be like an adventure!"

Sam covers the snort with a cough and begins to unpack his things. Moments later, he is finished. Dean's hoodie, stolen – he couldn't leave without some piece of his brother's warmth. A flannel shirt he will never wear – his father's. An accident, or Freudian packing. A tumble of socks, all worn through, none of them exactly matching but close enough to the same shape and color that he can get away with wearing them. The socks back home are community socks – not divided into his or Dad's or Dean's – so he took roughly a third and left the rest. He unpacks a towel his brother swiped from a motel. A knife his father taught him how to use. He has lived almost eighteen years as one third of the Winchester men and there is very little in the knapsack that is his alone.

He catches Seth's mother watching him, smile frozen on her lips but gone from her eyes. He smiles halfway at her, awkward, and moves to block the contents of his – well, Dean's, actually - knapsack from her view.

"Okay, Mary," Seth's dad says and Sam stops moving, winces at the name. "I guess we'd better be leaving the boys to get acquainted."

"Oh, we've got a minute," Mary says, sounding, really, not all that different from what he's been told about _his_ Mary. She sounds caring. Like a mom. "If you need anything, or you get lonely, you know you can call me, Seth." Then she looks in the direction of his worn knapsack again before she adds kindly, but uncertainly, "You, too, Sam."

Sam smiles a not-smile and half-raises his head, acknowledgment but not approval. "Thank you, ma'am." Sounding more smarmy than he meant to. More like Dean.

Mary moves to hug Seth goodbye and the boy acts embarrassed, but it is clear he is eating up the attention. He clings to his mom probably longer than he would want Sam to notice. It's hard for him to let go. Sam thinks of angry shouting, of leather seats, of the roar of the Impala's engine fading away from the bus station. He thinks of pained eyes and a sad smile. _Call me anytime, Sammy._ He pulls on the hoodie, reaches out to touch the flannel. It is hard for him to let go.

"Just think, sweetie," Mary tells her son, gesturing at the now-decorated room as she finally prepares to leave, "this is your home-away-from-home for the next four and a half months."

"Yeah, I guess if we don't like it," Seth says, sounding relieved, "we can always switch after that. Four and a half months isn't that long."

Sam thinks about what a very long time four and a half months is. He thinks about weekly specials at bad motels. He thinks about a nursery he can't remember and a crib he sometimes dreams about that smells like smoke and blood.

"Second longest I've ever stayed anywhere," he says quietly, and ignores the anxious looks from the clueless innocents whom he will never understand. Who will never understand him.

Nobody, anywhere, will ever understand him.

This is the first thing Sam has learned in college.

Knowing it's against dorm regulations, he slides the knife under his pillow and settles in on the too-soft bed in the too-clean room. He longs for rain on tent canvas and the smell of dying woodsmoke. All at once he feels so smotheringly warm, he will never remember what it's like to be cold. Maybe he should just go to sleep. Maybe tomorrow he will wake up normal.


End file.
